Staking and Resources

August 5, 2026 · View on GitHub

Stake TRX to earn resources — energy and bandwidth — instead of burning TRX on every transaction. This walkthrough uses the stake commands on Nile. Background: Energy & bandwidth.

Password: every stake command signs a transaction, so it needs your master password on stdin (--password-stdin), and signing shows no prompt. The examples below omit it to keep the resource flags in focus — prepend printf '%s' "$PW" | and append --password-stdin, or pipe from a password manager (see Getting started). Step 1 is a read-only query and needs no password.

1. See what you have

Run a read-only query first. stake info gives a staking-focused overview (staked amount, per-resource limits, pending unstakes, TRON Power); for the used / limit breakdown of your resources, use account info:

wallet-cli account info --network tron:nile

Label        main
Address      TMSgJxtPw29AFEHMXsjGo4kWV7UwbCToHJ
Balance      1976.489 TRX
Staked       12 TRX (energy 12 + bandwidth 0)
Energy       used 0 / 888
Bandwidth    used 0 / 600
Created      2026-06-30
Permissions  owner 1-of-1, 1 active group

Plain TRX transfers consume bandwidth; smart-contract calls (TRC20 transfers included) consume energy. Every activated account gets a small free bandwidth allowance (here 0 / 600). Energy, though, comes only from staking — this account shows 0 / 888 because it already has 12 TRX staked for energy (the Staked line); with nothing staked, energy is 0. When a resource runs out, the node burns TRX from your balance to cover the shortfall — staking is how you avoid that.

2. Stake for a resource

--amount-sun is raw SUN (1 TRX = 1,000,000 SUN). Stake 100 TRX for energy:

wallet-cli stake freeze --amount-sun 100000000 --resource energy --network tron:nile

--resource chooses which resource the stake produces. It defaults to bandwidth; stake for energy when you plan to send TRC20 tokens or call contracts, since those spend energy (as in step 1). The TRX stays yours — it is locked, not spent — and staking also grants TRON Power (governance votes). Like every state-changing command, stake freeze supports --dry-run, --sign-only, --wait, and returns at submission by default.

Verify the effect by running account info again — the Energy limit now reflects the TRX you staked:

wallet-cli account info --network tron:nile

3. Delegate resources to another address

Lend the resource your stake produces — for example, to a hot operations account so it can transact without holding staked TRX:

wallet-cli stake delegate --amount-sun 50000000 --resource energy --receiver TGkbaCYB4kRBc3Q6wjqkACefUvRwf2KzkH --network tron:nile

By default you can reclaim a delegation at any time. Adding --lock blocks that until a lock period passes — set its length with --lock-period <blocks> (each block is ~3 seconds). Once delegated, use stake delegated any time to inspect your current delegations and the maximum you can delegate. To reclaim the resource later, run the opposite command, stake undelegate, with the same amount, receiver, and resource:

wallet-cli stake undelegate --amount-sun 50000000 --resource energy --receiver TGkbaCYB4kRBc3Q6wjqkACefUvRwf2KzkH --network tron:nile

4. Unstake — a two-step exit, plus an undo

Unstaking is not instant; the chain imposes a waiting period — 14 days on mainnet (other networks may differ):

# step 1: request unstake — resources drop immediately, TRX enters the waiting queue
wallet-cli stake unfreeze --amount-sun 100000000 --resource energy --network tron:nile

# step 2 (after the waiting period): claim the expired unstake back to balance
wallet-cli stake withdraw --network tron:nile

# not a step — changed your mind before expiry? roll ALL pending unstakes back to staked
wallet-cli stake cancel-unfreeze --network tron:nile

cancel-unfreeze cancels the exit rather than continuing it — it is all-or-nothing across pending unstakes, so you cannot roll back just part of one. Run it and there is nothing left for withdraw to claim. withdraw claims whatever has expired.

1. See what you have

2. Stake for a resource

3. Delegate resources to another address

4. Unstake — a two-step exit, plus an undo

See also